NRDC announced winners of its annual Growing Green awards today, and it’s clear the environmental group is using the awards to influence the ongoing controversy surrounding use of the cancer-causing fungicide methyl iodide — which both California and the federal government have approved for use despite its well documented health risks.

Winning the Food Production award — the $10,000 top prize — is Jim Cochran of Swanton Berry Farms, the first California commercially successful grower of organic strawberries in California. Methyl iodide is primarily used for strawberries.

Pam Marrone of Marrone Bio-Innovations took the Business Leader award. The company produces natural alternatives to commercial pesticides, one component of a program that could viably replace methyl iodide. Marrone’s products are made from plant extracts and microorganisms.

Although 90 percent of her products replace chemicals in conventional — not organic — farming, Marrone is careful not to proclaim too loudly that they are alternatives to methyl iodide — or the ozone-destroying methyl bromide that methyl iodide was okayed to replace. She explains that because “the regulations are really black and white,” if a non-toxic alternative can be found, farmers are forced to start using it immediately, exacerbating resistance to new methods.

Marrone says, “everyone wants a silver bullet — a drop-in replacement. Methyl iodide is popular because it is a drop-in replacement” for methyl bromide.

But, she explains, “Everyone says there’s no alternative. But actual testing of a program that’s an alternative to methyl bromide hasn’t been done because no one wants it to be done. Less than 10 percent of the money going to looking for an alternative is going to truly ecological” options.

Organic farmers like Jim Cochran do without toxics by employing methods that conventional farmers would dismiss as too complicated and expensive. When Cochran first started growing pesticide-free strawberries in 1987 — partly motivated by a bout of pesticide poisoning — conventional farmers predicted he’d fail. Not only did he not fail, he paved the way for more than 100 other growers of organic strawberries in California.

So how does he keep fungus at bay?

“I picked up from the wine industry when they were talking about how to control botrytus — they thin vine out in a certain way; they don’t crowd the canopy [which is] warm and humid and a great place for fungus to grow.” So, he says, “I switched to a single row of plants” per bed. Most farms grow 2-4 rows of berries in a single bed. “But then they form a canopy,” Cochran says.

Cochran concedes that with fewer plants per acre he has to charge more. So how does he get away with it?

“I’ve concentrated on flavor; he explains. “There’s an inverse relationship between flavor and yield. If you concentrate on flavor, you just not going to get the yield. Maybe it’s because you have a certain amount of flavor that’s available.”

Cochran made a “difficult decision” 28 years ago when he shared his techniques with others. By now U.C. Santa Cruz has published and augmented them, so they’re no secret.

Simply, Cochran explains, he’s done it by “returning to old-fashioned good farming practices. Crop rotation has been largely abandoned in industrial business. If you dump chemicals you don’t really need to rotate crops; that’s one of the advantages of chemical farming.” Swanton rotates with broccoli and cauliflower because “when they break down they seem to suppress certain kinds of soil disease.”